


Studies In Greyscale

by sweetestsight



Series: Exercises In Free Love [5]
Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Queen (Band)
Genre: Fluff, Introspection, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-26
Updated: 2019-07-26
Packaged: 2020-07-20 12:56:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19992568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetestsight/pseuds/sweetestsight
Summary: There's an exercise he used to follow. It goes like this.





	Studies In Greyscale

There's an exercise he used to follow. It goes like this. 

He’d wake and look at his lover. He’d trace her mouth with his eyes. He’d watch her breathe. He’d think,  _ what do you mean to me?  _ He’d think,  _ what am I right now?  _ He’d think,  _ who am I when you aren’t here? _

Who is he today? 

On that day he was a coward and a liar. On that day he knew in no deep place--no, not a hidden bit of knowledge but a surface-level awareness--that something wasn't right. He was in love but he was also in the wrong place. His body wasn’t quite his own, but it wasn’t quite hers. None of it was matching up. 

And then he'd gone to rehearsal and let John sing into his mic, felt Roger watching them with a heat in his eyes, had let Brian lead him out with a hand on his back as they'd gone to get drinks. And he didn't feel then what he knows now, but he felt something. He felt a static buzz under his skin, restlessness shaking its wings at the simple idea not of them but of people like them, and maybe a little bit at the idea of them as well, if he wasn't lying. He was lying too much back then. 

But he was young. 

He knows a little more now. He knows each of them intimately, and they know him better than he knows himself.  _ Know thyself, _ someone said once, and Freddie doesn't know who, but that’s hardly significant among the long list of other things he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know much about math and science and technology the way his lovers do; another insignificant thing. He doesn’t know himself. That’s more difficult to ignore. He knows his lovers and they know him, so maybe it almost evens out. Together they're one functional unit and hey, isn't that a nice thought?

He opens his eyes. 

He turns and looks at his lover. He looks at his mouth, lips parted. He looks at the mess of his wavy hair. He looks at his eyes roving behind his eyelids, wiry arms splayed to accommodate a body. A head of blonde hair is buried against his chest, strong shoulders curled inward. He looks behind them both, finds a pair of slender hands and follows the line of his arms up to his shoulders. A pair of hazel eyes blinks tiredly back.

_ What do you mean to me? _

It isn't a small question. It's the only question some days. He still doesn't know how to answer it. Maybe that's a good thing. 

_ What am I right now? _

He doesn't know. The deepest parts of the ocean don't know. The air in spring doesn't know. Does Brian know?

Brian’s mouth flattens slightly at the corners, some sort of half-aborted smile, and he sits up slowly. Freddie can practically see the dredges of sleep weighing on him. His eyelids sag even as he stands, but somehow he makes it up. He gestures with his head toward the kitchen and then disappears, leaving Freddie to follow. 

Freddie does, slowly. He takes one last look at the two still curled around each other in bed before he leaves the room. 

The hallway is quiet and dark. The floorboards are cold, a shock to his bare feet. He keeps his eyes on the wood as he walks, following the lines of the grain all the way to the kitchen.  _ What am I?  _ He traces the walls with his fingertips as he goes.  _ What am I? _

Brian has the kettle on and two mugs set out. Half a piece of untoasted bread is sticking out of his mouth--floppy and sad, but Freddie knows he can't drink tea on an empty stomach--and his shoulders are sagging with tiredness. When he sees Freddie he abandons the kettle in favor of steering him toward the couch, pushing him gently down onto it and then sitting quietly next to him, chewing all the while. 

Freddie watches as he does. “Why are we up?” he asks him hesitantly. 

Brian shrugs languidly and takes another bite of bread. 

“It’s far too early.” 

“You were up,” Brian mumbles, then stands as the kettle clicks itself off. He walks over to the counter, jelly-kneed like a particularly sleepy colt, fills the mugs and splashes appropriate amounts of milk into each, and then comes stumbling back in much the same fashion. The sight has Freddie’s lips quirking up in spite of himself. 

“Thank you, darling,” Freddie says. He holds his mug carefully until Brian is settled again. “We don’t have to be up on my account, though. God knows you need your rest when you can get it.” 

“You weren’t going to go back to bed,” Brian states. 

Freddie shakes his head. 

He settles deeper into the couch, then. He shakes his shoulders out lightly and pulls his knees up to his chest, curls practically reaching them as he ducks to blow on his tea. He relaxes into his space and into the silence in a way Freddie has come to associate closely with Brian. Silence has never bothered him. Silence is a place of night and mystery and introspection, and it is a place where Brian has always thrived. 

After that thought he’s loathe to break it. He does so as quietly and gently as he can, words coming out in a murmur. “I don’t know quite who I am,” he says. Brian’s eyes flick up to meet his, but when he says nothing Freddie continues hesitantly. “It’s going to sound dramatic, Brimi, so don’t laugh. I feel like I’m straddling some kind of line. I’m living two lives at once.” 

He falls silent again and takes a sip of his tea just for something to do. Brian’s gaze is heavy against his cheek. “Two lives?” he asks finally, voice rough and quiet. 

Freddie nods. “I--on stage I know who I am, because it’s not me. When I’m not on stage I know who I am. I’m the opposite of whoever that is, but I don’t…” he trails off and meets Brian’s eyes again, searching for understanding. “I don’t know anymore which one is the lie. And when I’m out there I have my three bandmates, and in here I have three lovers--”

“That’s not a lie,” Brian cuts in quickly. 

“I know that. I know, love. It’s just--it’s getting so confusing that I’m afraid I’m going to get lost in it.” 

“You won’t, Freddie.” 

“Brian--”

“Freddie,” Brian says, more firmly. “Love of my life. You won’t get lost in this.” 

“You don’t know that,” Freddie whispers. “I’m getting lost already.”

Brian frowns and looks away from him for a minute, eyes wandering across the apartment unseeingly in the daze of the truly sleep-deprived. When they finally land once more on Freddie’s face they’re only slightly more lucid. “Do you know John?” he asks. 

It’s Freddie’s turn to frown. “What?”

“Would you say that you know John?” 

He thinks about it--he doesn’t need to for long, not really. He knows John as well as he can--and it’s impossible not to be continually surprised by people like him, so of course there’s a qualifier there--but no, he knows him. He knows the way he loves, the way he talks, the choices he makes and the way his eyes catch on expensive fabrics and fine jewels before darting quickly away like he’s not allowed to look. He knows the way John thinks, and he likes it. 

“What do you know about him?” Brian asks softly. 

“He’s humble,” Freddie says slowly. “He’s the most humble person I’ve ever met. He’s thoughtful but he can use it against people if he wants to. He loves us. He makes an effort to get to know people, to really know them.” 

“Do you think he knows you?”

Freddie hesitates, then nods.

“I think so, too,” Brian says quietly. “What about Roger? Does he know you?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“Do you know him?” 

“I don’t--” he starts, then catches himself. “Yes, alright. Yes, I know him.”

“What do you know about him?”

“He never seems to have issues with things like this,” Freddie mumbles. “He knows who he is and how to take control of his own life. When he doesn’t like who he is he makes an effort to change.”

“Why do you think he doesn’t know you?” Brian asks quietly. 

Freddie shakes his head. “He does. He really does. He knew me from the moment we met, I think. He figured me out in a second. He’s good with people that way.”

Brian presses their shoulders together and looks at him solemnly. “And do you know me?” 

Freddie turns to look at him, and then he can’t look away--away from his soul brother, his perfect B-side, the moon rising at the end of his day. He can’t look away. “Of course I do,” he whispers. “Of course. How could I not?” 

For the first time Brian smiles, a tiny ghost of a thing. He puts his mug down and pulls Freddie closer until the two of them are pressed together, legs tangled. “When I feel like I can’t control anything I think of you,” he murmurs. “And John, and Roger. When I don’t know what I’m doing I come back to you three. There’s nothing else I’m more certain of. Now you’re lost, but it’ll be okay. We’ve got you, Freddie. We know you.” 

It pulls an echo up from the depths of his brain-- _ I know you, Freddie Mercury, _ cigarette smoke clouding the studio lobby’s air--but smooths over it just as quickly. This time it isn’t a lie. This time it’s true, and rather than vulnerability there’s a deep comfort to that fact. 

“Where are we going?” he mumbles, half to himself. 

Brian runs a hand over his hair before following it with a kiss. “I have no idea,” he replies, fingers drawing nonsense shapes on Freddie’s shoulder. “No idea at all. We’ll get there together, though.” 

“What if we lose track of it all along the way?” Freddie asks. “All this time we’ve been chasing money and success, but what if we finally get them and it all becomes too much?”

“Then we’ll deal with that together, too.” 

He swallows and voices his final fear. “What if it tears us apart?” 

Brian is silent for a long moment, fingers still tracing his back. “I don’t think it will. I don’t think it can.” 

“How do you know?” 

“Because we always come back to each other. No matter how much we argue we always make up. We’re always okay.” 

“All we do is argue.” 

“No, love,” Brian murmurs. “All we do is find ways through it. That’s all we do, every single time. We find a way to make it work.”

Freddie sighs. 

“And does it work?” 

“Yes,” he whispers. “Yes, it works.” 

“That’s what I know about us. That’s what I know about you,” he adds, kissing Freddie’s head again. “You bring people together. You make all of us want to try harder. You never give up hope in people just like you never give up hope on your dreams, and I already know that there is no such thing as a world where we give up on each other. You’ll always have us, and if you want fame and to stay true to yourself then you’ll have those things, too. Alright?” 

Freddie nods. “Alright.” 

It shouldn’t be as easy as that, but somehow it is. The room is toeing the line of the surreal the way spaces on the edge of sleep always do, and somehow there’s a solemn kind of certainty buried within it--or maybe that’s just what the man next to him provides, sweet and melancholy and raw in his honesty. 

Slowly it brightens. Shapes become more clear. The grey light of morning grows steadily lighter as it trickles through the curtains, washing the room slowly in the coolness of it and the rhythm of Brian’s breathing, in and out like the sea. Freddie closes his eyes and just listens to it. 

The minutes stretch on, and the rhythm slowly grows more and more even. 

“Should we go back to bed?” Freddie whispers.

“In a minute,” Brian murmurs, his voice loud and resonating deeply where Freddie’s ear is pressed to his chest. 

Freddie sighs and settles closer against him. 

He wakes an unknown amount of time later to Brian groaning in protest in his ear, the grey light of dawn replaced by the golden glow of morning, Roger poking him in the cheek with the end of a whisk. He swats it away and rolls over so he can press his face into Brian’s hair, shrouding his senses in him for a little longer. 

Roger is determined not to let him, apparently. He takes the other side of the couch and glues himself against Freddie’s back, prodding his arm with his whisk all the while. “Wake up,” he whines. 

“Nghh,” Freddie tells him. 

The whisk is replaced by a hand, and he groans as Roger starts rubbing his shoulders. “Come on. You’re going to let the day get away from you. Isn’t that what you always say?”

The smell of fresh coffee hits his nose, mingling with the aftershave John has taken to wearing now that they have enough spending money to afford such things. A hand cards through Freddie’s hair. “Come on, loves,” John says quietly. 

Brian shifts toward him, no doubt to get the same attention Freddie is. “Is that for me?” he asks, voice deliciously low, and Freddie curls closer around him. 

“It can be, seeing as your limpet there doesn’t seem to have any hands free.” 

Freddie hums and turns his head sideways, still resting on Brian’s shoulder but now facing Roger. He doesn’t bother opening his eyes; he can tell he’s still there by the huff of laughter. 

“Hello there,” Roger says. “Are you planning on getting up anytime soon?” 

“No.” 

“It’s not like you to sleep in.”

“We were up earlier,” Brian rasps out. 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Couldn’t sleep.” 

“Now you can’t seem to stay awake,” John says, a laugh hidden in his voice. 

Freddie manages to haul his eyes open finally. The sun from the window hurts to look at, but if any sight could soothe his sore eyes it’s Roger haloed gently in gold. “There he is,” he says softly, grin breaking across his face. 

Freddie hums. “What time is it?”

“Nearly ten.”

“Fuck. Paul is coming to pick us up for the meeting at noon. We should--”

“I’m driving us to the meeting,” John says, a cold undercurrent to his gentle tone. “Don’t worry about Paul.” Freddie frowns and turns to look at him, but John just smiles at him sweetly, every inch the shy, harmless honors student he was when they first met him. “There’s no rush. Come on.”

Roger pokes him with the whisk again. “We’re making French toast. Well, John’s making French toast.” 

“You helped.” 

“I kind of helped.” 

“Do you need more help?” Brian asks, already gradually moving out of Freddie’s hold and dropping a kiss onto the top of his head when he whines. 

“I wouldn’t mind it. We’re almost ready, actually.” 

“I suppose that’s our cue,” Brian sighs. “Come on, love.” 

“I don’t want to,” Freddie whines. “Carry me.” 

“I’m not carrying you,” Brian says with a huff of laughter. He puts his mug down and holds out his hands. “Come on.” 

Freddie grumbles as he takes them, allowing himself to be hauled up from the couch and set on his feet. 

“There you go. That’s not so bad, huh?” 

“Horrible,” Freddie rasps. 

Brian just laughs at him as he follows John into the kitchen. 

Freddie’s about to follow when he feels a hand against his hip. He turns toward it and is met with Roger watching him, wearing a tiny smile. “Hey,” he murmurs. “Alright?” 

Freddie nods minutely. “Alright, yeah.” 

“I was worried when you guys were gone this morning.” 

Brian’s words from earlier come filtering back into his head. They really do know each other inside and out. It’s clear through the way John and Brian are bickering half-heartedly in the kitchen, clear from the way Roger is watching him with careful eyes. 

Wherever they’re going, they’re going together. 

“I’m alright,” he says, and this time he’s sure of it. 

“Yeah?” Roger asks, pulling him closer.

“Yeah.” 

Roger gives him a sparkling smile, eyes bright in the light of the rising sun, and Freddie can feel it rushing through him. He knows who he is. He’s warm and happy and he’s in love. That’s all that matters. 

“Yeah. I’m okay,” he says again. He grins back and watches Roger grow even brighter for it, a glorious loop. “I’m alright.” 

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was among some older drafts and pieces of things which I’m trying to polish up and publish in the next few months. I’m not necessarily in love with all of them, but it feels a little silly to have 45K+ words of useable content just gathering dust on my hard drive. Let me know what you think of this one! 
> 
> Other than that ongoing summer cleaning project there are a few things in the works. A fairly sizeable Joger one is on its way as well as a shorter smut, and potentially a lesbian deacury. I’ve been throwing around the first bit of a prequel to Bring Back What Once Was Mine as well, and that should wrap up the immediate forecast. If you guys have any preferences for anything I’d love to hear from ya! ;)


End file.
